The Conversation -- May 8, 2024

Richard Fausset of the New York Times: “The Georgia Court of Appeals will hear an appeal of a ruling that allowed Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, to continue leading the prosecution of ... Donald J. Trump on charges related to election interference, the court announced on Wednesday. The decision to hear the appeal, handed down by a three-judge panel, is likely to further delay the Georgia criminal case against Mr. Trump and 14 of his allies, making it less likely that the case will go to trial before the November election. The terse three-sentence announcement reopens the possibility that Ms. Willis could be disqualified from the biggest case of her career, and one of the most significant state criminal cases in the nation’s history.”

“When You're a Star, They Let You Do It.” Noah Berlatsky of Public Notice: “... [Stormy] Daniels’s testimony is a reminder that contempt and mistreatment of women is a core theme of Trump’s life and politics.... Daniels’s testimony is intended to establish the background facts of the payment. It also, though, paints Trump as a liar, a bully, and a sexual manipulator. Daniels said while she was in Trump’s hotel room, she went to the bathroom, and when he came out he was in his boxer shorts, a moment Daniels describes as'like a jump scare.'... According to Daniels, [Trump] suggest[ed] that if she cooperated with him he could help her career through his connections and a possible appearance on the Celebrity Apprentice reality show, where Trump was the star.... Daniels has not accused Trump of sexual harassment or violence, and she says their encounter was consensual. Her testimony makes clear, though, that Trump was pressuring her for sex in return for business opportunities — a variation on the ugly tradition of the Hollywood casting couch.” Read on.

Susanne Craig of the New York Times on Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s medical records, including the worm that ate part of his brain (MB: which is not a joke but could help explain his passion for nutty ideas). Thanks to RAS for the link.

Ryan Reilly & Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: “A right-wing social media influencer hired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign who previously said Jan. 6 was 'Democrat misdirection' appears to have himself been on the restricted grounds of the U.S. Capitol during the attack. NBC News first reported that Kennedy’s campaign hired Zach Henry’s firm, Total Virality, for influencer engagement' in March. Henry had worked as deputy communications director for Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign, as well as for Blake Masters during his Senate run in Arizona. Henry ... appears to have embraced conspiracy theories about the Capitol attack, including posting that 'antifa' was behind it, which is false.”

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Erica Green & Michael Shear of the New York Times: “President Biden on Tuesday condemned a 'ferocious surge of antisemitism' in the United States following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and said people were already forgetting the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance, Mr. Biden tied the anti-Jewish sentiment that led to the Nazi effort to exterminate Jews directly to Oct. 7. 'This ancient hatred of Jews didn’t begin with the Holocaust,' he said. 'It didn’t end with the Holocaust, either.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

The Trials of Trump, Ctd.

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: “... on Tuesday, [Stormy] Daniels took the stand at [a criminal trial of Donald Trump], bringing the former president face to face with the porn star at the case’s center. The charges stem from her story of sex with Mr. Trump during that 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, a story she was shopping a decade later, in the closing days of the presidential campaign. Mr. Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, paid her $130,000 in hush money before Election Day, and the former president is accused of falsifying business records to cover up reimbursements for Mr. Cohen.... After about a half-hour on the stand, she began to unspool intimate details about Mr. Trump, so much so that the judge balked at some of the testimony. He implied it was gratuitously vulgar, and the defense sought a mistrial.

“Ms. Daniels said the future president had invited her to dinner inside his palatial Lake Tahoe hotel suite. He answered the door wearing silk pajamas. When he was rude, she playfully spanked him with a rolled-up magazine. And when she asked about his wife, he told her not to worry, that they didn’t even sleep in the same room — prompting Mr. Trump to shake his head in disgust and mutter 'bullshit' to his lawyers, loud enough that it drew a private rebuke from the judge, who called it 'contemptuous.' Ms. Daniels then recounted the sex itself in graphic detail.... And she testified that she would have told the same uncomfortable tale in 2016, had she not taken the hush money from Mr. Trump’s fixer.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll have to see the transcript, but it sounds as if Daniels was describing her recollections of events, which is the essential job of a witness. If her testimony was "uncomfortable," blame it on the defendant, who -- according to the witness -- initiated the "uncomfy" conduct. Besides, he's the one who is using obscenity & acting out in the courtroom. However, in reading the Times' reporters' notes, I was struck by the prosecution's seeming failure to prep Daniels; consequently, she was a bad witness. She spoke too fast, she freelanced answers, she squabbled with the defense attorney & she angered the judge. We don't know the effect this all had on the jury, but I'd hazard a guess the jurors weren't positively impressed. This is likely to be the prosecutors' fault more than the witness's. ~~~

     ~~~ Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: “New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan called Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche to a sidebar during a midday break to say that Trump was 'cursing audibly' and possibly intimidating [Stormy] Daniels, who had begun testifying, according to a trial transcript. 'I understand that your client is upset at this point,' Merchan said to the defense attorney, according to the transcript, 'but he is cursing audibly and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.'... 'I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,' Merchan said. 'You need to speak to him. I won’t tolerate that.'”

Stephen recaps the testimony:

     ~~~ Here's Jimmy Kimmel's take.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post addresses the Don Snorleone problem.

The New York Times liveblogged Tuesday's trial developments in the Trump 2016 election interference case. See yesterday's Conversation for some of the reporters' observations. (Also linked yesterday.)

     ~~~ Links to previous transcripts, via the New York court system, are here.

Adam Nichols of the Raw Story: "After weeks of complaining that his hush money trial would stop him attending his youngest son’s high school graduation, Donald Trump’s judge finally agreed to pause the trial for a day — and the ex-president swiftly organized a fundraiser. Trump is now expected to speak at the Minnesota Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan dinner on May 17 — the day Barron Trump graduates. It’s not known if he will be at the graduation ceremony in Florida prior to his Minnesota appearance."

** Judge Aileen Drops the Gavel. Katelyn Polantz, et al., of CNN: “Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed ... Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida, citing significant issues around classified evidence that would need to be worked out before the federal criminal case goes to a jury. In an order Tuesday, Cannon cancelled the May trial date and did not set a new date.... Cannon noted in her Tuesday order that there are eight substantive pending motions she has yet to decide.” This is an update of a brief breaking story linked yesterday afternoon. ~~~

     ~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “But while Judge Cannon’s stated reason for putting off the trial indefinitely was that a large number of legal issues remain up in the air, she never mentioned that she herself helped allow the logjam of motions to pile up.... Throughout the case, Judge Cannon has given Mr. Trump’s legal team wide berth in defending him, often granting an audience to legal motions that many federal judges would have rejected out of hand or decided on the merits of written filings alone.... Her decision came directly after Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked again for the deadline to be pushed back, saying they needed more time and raising allegations that [Jack] Smith’s team had failed to preserve the integrity of the boxes of documents that sit at the heart of the case.” MB: Yes, Jack, where are those boxes of classified documents I left in the public bathroom? You really have failed to “preserve their integrity.” ~~~

     ~~~ “Motion to Remove Judge in the matter of United States of America vs. Donald J. Trump: Get Out! S/Jack Smith” ~~~

     ~~~ Marcy Wheeler: "... none of this is surprising. But it is Cannon’s commitment to let a man accused of stealing hundreds of classified documents potentially regain the White House with no accountability for his alleged theft." ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: "Cannon understands her commission, which was not to be a judge in any recognizable sense, at least in any case of personal or political importance to the Republican Party in general or Donald Trump in particular."

** Not That It Matters, But. Katelyn Polantz & Tierney Sneed of CNN: “Donald Trump’s valet told investigators before the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in 2022 that he randomly chose boxes of documents to return to the National Archives and Trump himself directed that dozens more boxes located at the resort wouldn’t be returned, according to recently unsealed court filings. The filings reviewed by CNN shed new light on the critical role that Walt Nauta, now Trump’s co-defendant in the classified documents case, played in giving the FBI justification to execute the search warrant on the former president’s Florida resort.... Nauta’s account was corroborated by a second witness, whose identity is not publicly known. Both said that Trump gave the direction not to give the National Archives any more boxes.”

Presidential Race

When Even Both-Sides Baker Gets It. Peter Baker of the New York Times: “These were the images Americans were presented on Tuesday about their two choices for president: One taking his grandchildren to Dachau to bear witness to the horrors of Nazi death camps, the other sitting on a hotel bed in his boxer shorts waiting for sex with a porn star....But the surreal synchronism of the disparate events 182 days before the election captured the sometimes unreal reality of a presidential race like none before it, at once profound and tawdry, a contest with momentous consequences and a circuslike surround sound. A nation grappling with two wars overseas and campus unrest at home is also being asked to parse through the unseemly details of a married man’s purported dalliance with a woman who had sex on camera professionally.”

Chris Cameron of the New York Times: “The grandson of President John F. Kennedy this week savaged his presidential-candidate cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a series of mocking, meant-to-be-funny videos that were, inarguably, uncharacteristically un-Kennedyesque, escalating a civil war within America’s most storied political dynasty. In a series of Instagram posts, the grandson, Jack Schlossberg, 31, variously called Mr. Kennedy, 70, a 'prick,' suggested he was using steroids, said he was 'lying to us' and portrayed him as a Russian stooge and a stalking horse for Donald J. Trump.”

** Remember the Corruption. Donald Trump Has Been Asking, “Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?” Let's Check. New York Times editorial, May 8, 2020: After Donald Trump fired Michael Flynn for lying to Vice President Mike Pence, after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators, after Flynn twice admitted under oath he had lied, after a federal judge had refused to throw out his conviction, along comes Attorney General Bill Barr and “suddenly dropped all criminal charges against Mr. Flynn.... The attorney general is supposed to work for the American people, not as a personal fixer for the president. Instead, from the day he took the job, Mr. Barr has worked to provide cover for Mr. Trump.”

Haleluya Hadero, et al., of the AP: “TikTok and its Chinese parent company filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a new American law that would ban the popular video-sharing app in the U.S. unless it’s sold to an approved buyer, saying it unfairly singles out the platform and is an unprecedented attack on free speech. In its lawsuit, ByteDance says the new law vaguely paints its ownership of TikTok as a national security threat in order to circumvent the First Amendment, despite no evidence that the company poses a threat.”

Jamie Stengle of the AP: “The Boy Scouts of America announced after 114 years that it will change its name and will become Scouting America in an effort to emphasize inclusion as it works to move past the turmoil of bankruptcy and a flood of sexual abuse claims. The rebrand is another seismic shift for an organization steeped in tradition that did not allow gay youths or girls to begin joining its ranks until relatively recently. Seeking to boost flagging membership numbers, the Irving, Texas-based organization announced the name change Tuesday at its annual meeting in Florida.”

Annals of “Journalism,” Ctd. Dan Froomkin of Press Watch: “Joe Kahn, after two years in charge of the New York Times newsroom, has learned nothing. He had an extraordinary opportunity, upon taking over from Dean Baquet, to right the ship: to recognize that the Times was not warning sufficiently of the threat to democracy presented by a second Trump presidency. But to Kahn, democracy is a partisan issue and he’s not taking sides. He made that clear in an interview with obsequious former employee Ben Smith, now the editor of Semafor...: 'To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda.' But critics like me ... [are] asking the Times to recognize that it isn’t living up to its own standards of truth-telling and independence when it obfuscates the stakes of the 2024 election, covers up for Trump’s derangement, and goes out of its way to make Biden look weak.”

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Indiana Gubernatorial Race. Mitch Smith of the New York Times: “Senator Mike Braun of Indiana won the Republican nomination for governor of his solidly conservative state, The Associated Press said on Tuesday, positioning him as the strong favorite in this fall’s general election. Mr. Braun defeated several other candidates, including Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, in the primary. Mr. Braun, who received the endorsement of ... Donald J. Trump, has presented himself as a fiscal conservative and has pledged to take a tough stance on crime. Indiana’s current governor, Eric Holcomb, a Republican who has occasionally bucked the right wing of his party on public health and cultural issues during his tenure, was barred by term limits from seeking re-election. Mr. Braun, a businessman and first-term senator, will face Jennifer McCormick, the former state superintendent of public instruction, in November. Ms. McCormick, who was unopposed in the Democratic primary, was elected to her prior position as a Republican but fell out of favor with that party.”

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Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: “The United States believes negotiations on a cease-fire and hostage release deal 'should be able to close the remaining gaps' between Israel and Hamas, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, as talks continue in Cairo. The Biden administration has paused the shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel as U.S. concerns grow about the long-planned ground operation in Rafah — the first known delay in U.S. arms to Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.... Israel reopened the Kerem Shalom border crossing, Israeli officials said Tuesday, after a deadly Hamas rocket attack led to its closing. The crossing is one of the few entry points through which aid can be delivered to Gaza.... Israeli troops seized the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza, disrupting the flow of aid into the Strip. Hamas accused Israel of trying to 'exacerbate the humanitarian situation in the Strip by closing' the crossing. Wael Abu Omar, a Gaza border official, said travel and the flow of aid into the Strip had 'stopped completely.'” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates Wednesday are here. CNN's live updates are here.

** Peter Baker of the New York Times: “President Biden paused an arms shipment to Israel last week to prevent the U.S.-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened assault on the city of Rafah, administration officials said on Tuesday night, a sign of the growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem over the conduct of the war. The president withheld 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than one million Gazans have taken refuge, the officials said. The administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions. The decision to delay the delivery of the 3,500 bombs was the first time since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack that Mr. Biden has used his power to curtail arms as an instrument to influence Israel’s approach to the war that followed. A number of Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies in Congress have for weeks urged him to limit or halt arms shipments to Israel, something he had refused to do until now because of his strong support for the effort to destroy Hamas.” An ABC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Ellen Knickmeyer of the AP: “Facing heat over its military support for Israel’s war, the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war. A decision against Israel would add to pressure on President Joe Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military. The administration agreed in February at the insistence of Democrats in Congress to look at whether Israel has used U.S.-provided weapons and other military assistance in a lawful manner. Additionally, under the same agreement, it must tell Congress whether it deems that Israel has acted to 'arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,' delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.”

Ukraine, et al. Constant Méheut of the New York Times: “Ukraine’s security services said on Tuesday that they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top military and political figures. Two Ukrainian colonels accused of participating in the plot have been arrested on suspicion of treason. The Ukrainian domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U., said in a statement that the plot had involved a network of agents — including the two colonels — that was run by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the main successor agency to the K.G.B. According to the Ukrainian agency, the agents working at Russia’s direction were tasked with identifying people close to Mr. Zelensky’s security detail who could take him hostage and later kill him.” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post places Vladimir Putin at the center of a movement to push anti-democratic sentiments, not just in Russia but in Western nations. MB: I would say those sentiments long pre-date Putin and have prevailed throughout most of the history of this country. Just look at Joseph Kahn, the NYT's executive editor, who believes that democracy is a partisan issue (see Froomkin essay linked above). I doubt Kahn is a Putin puppet; he is simply too naive to grasp the threat the Grand Oligarch Party poses.

The Conversation -- May 7, 2024

Erica Green & Michael Shear of the New York Times: “President Biden on Tuesday condemned a 'ferocious surge of antisemitism' in the United States following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and said people were already forgetting the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Speaking at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Days of Remembrance, Mr. Biden tied the anti-Jewish sentiment that led to the Nazi effort to exterminate Jews directly to Oct. 7. 'This ancient hatred of Jews didn’t begin with the Holocaust,' he said. 'It didn’t end with the Holocaust, either.'”

** Judge Aileen Drops the Gavel. Katelyn Polantz, et al., of CNN: "Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed ... Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida, citing significant issues around classified evidence that would need to be worked out before the federal criminal case goes to a jury. In an order Tuesday, Cannon cancelled the May trial date and did not set a new date."

Constant Méheut of the New York Times: “Ukraine’s security services said on Tuesday that they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top military and political figures. Two Ukrainian colonels accused of participating in the plot have been arrested on suspicion of treason. The Ukrainian domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U., said in a statement that the plot had involved a network of agents — including the two colonels — that was run by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the main successor agency to the K.G.B. According to the Ukrainian agency, the agents working at Russia’s direction were tasked with identifying people close to Mr. Zelensky’s security detail who could take him hostage and later kill him.”

The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the Trump 2016 election interference case. ~~~

Maggie Haberman: “We are heading into the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. Trump posted on Truth Social an angry message saying he had just learned who the next witness is and that his lawyers had 'no time' to prepare. Within thirty minutes, Trump had removed the post, likely because it risked prosecutors saying it violated the gag order.”

William Rashbaum: “Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the heart of Trump’s hush money trial is in the courthouse and is expected to testify today.”

Haberman: “This is the first time Trump will have to be face to face with Daniels and hear her accusations. He has continued to deny that an affair took place. This trial, unlike the other three criminal trials he’s facing, is personal for him in a very specific way, and Daniels has spoken about him and his physicality publicly in a humiliating manner.”

Jonah Bromwich: “Even though Stormy Daniels’s name hasn’t yet been called, we are already right into it. The implication of this argument is that Daniels will testify about having had sex with Trump. Susan Hoffinger, a prosecutor, is arguing that these details are key to the case — and that this issue has already been settled. She says that details that are too salacious will not be admitted, but that the story is 'significant' and important to prosecutors in terms of Daniels’s credibility.”

Haberman: “Susan Necheles, one of Trump's lawyer, begins by objecting to Stormy Daniels testifying, including 'any details' of any 'sexual act.'”

Jesse McKinley: “Justice Merchan concedes that Daniels’s may have “credibility issues,” but that it's up to the jury to determine that.... The first witness today is Sally Franklin, who works at Penguin Random House, a publisher.”

Bromwich: “Sally Franklin is a custodial witness ... and she will testify about two books that Trump wrote, including 'Trump: How to Get Rich' and 'Trump: Think Like a Billionaire,' both of which were published by Ballantine, a Penguin Random House imprint.”

Kate Christobek: “Rebecca Mangold, the prosecutor, is prompting Sally Franklin to read Trump’s written words from these books, including the following passages: 'For many years, I’ve said that if someone screws you, screw them back,' and, 'When somebody hurts you, just go after them as viciously and as violently as you can. Like it says in the Bible, an eye for an eye.'”

Haberman: “Now, Sally Franklin is walking the court through a chapter of a book in which Trump, in his own words, describes his frugality, including looking over bills to 'make sure I’m not being overcharged.' The goal is to invalidate the idea that he could have been unaware of what he was paying Michael Cohen, or what the money was for.”

Swan: “The prosecution is effectively using Trump himself as a witness here. In his own words — as laid out in his books — Trump is describing how he keeps a focus on minute details and watches every penny that leaves his accounts, a core part of the prosecution’s case against him. He’s also describing how he sees sexual potential in random women that he encounters.”

Haberman: “Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyers, is now cross-examining Sally Franklin, leaning into his customary line of defense: distancing Trump from the book published under his own name and trying to suggest that Meredith McIver, the ghost-writer who worked for him, was behind the language, as opposed to Trump.”

Swan: “There’s an irony here with Trump’s counsel trying to cast doubt over whether Trump wrote his own books. Trump himself has always insisted — falsely — that all of the words printed in his name are his. During the White House years, Trump aides would implausibly claim on the record that Trump’s speeches were written by him.”

Bromwich: “We have arrived at perhaps the most significant excerpt, as Trump writes in one of his books about the importance of personally signing checks. He wrote that he did not like to allow a computer to sign a check, because when the boss did it himself, it showed employees he was attending to the details. Some of the false documents at issue in the case are checks, some of them with Trump’s signature. This is tough evidence for the defense.”

Haberman: “Sally Franklin, on re-direct, is testifying about one of Trump's books that he was directly involved in, as a way of dispelling the defense's argument that someone else’s work was behind it.”

Bromwich: “'The people call Stormy Daniels,' Susan Hoffinger says.”

McKinley: “Daniels is quickly walking through some of her early biography: raised in Baton Rouge, wanted to be a veterinarian, editor of her high school newspaper.”

Bromwich: “As Stormy Daniels talks about moving from stripping to acting in adult films, she is continuing to talk very, very quickly.... Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, guides Stormy Daniels toward talking about writing and directing adult films.”

Haberman: “Stormy Daniels is now going through her résumé, including mainstream movies she appeared in like 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin.'”

McKinley: “The prosecution is drawing out other work experience, including directing music videos, doing comedy, writing books and making podcasts, perhaps to show that she is more than just an adult film actress.”

Haberman: “Stormy Daniels is now describing the golf tournament at Lake Tahoe in 2006 where she met Trump. In a notable line, she says she knew that he was 'as old or older than my father.... Daniels is recounting interactions with Trump after meeting him, and then getting a message he wanted to have dinner with her. She is asked to point him out in the courtroom, and she does by his navy jacket, pointing directly at him. He sits with no reaction.... Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, is asking about Trump inviting Daniels to dinner. Daniels says that she was approached by 'Keith,' meaning Keith Schiller, Trump’s ominpresent bodyman. She says he took her number, though she refused the invitation initially.”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels says that the first person she mentioned the dinner invitation to was her publicist....”

McKinley: “Daniels recalls that her publicist urged her to go to the dinner, and asked her: "'“What could possibly go wrong?”'”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels is now talking about meeting Trump for dinner. She says that when he first emerged from his hotel suite, he was wearing 'silk or satin' pajamas, which Daniels compared to those often sported by Hugh Hefner. She asked him to change, and he returned in more standard dress clothes.”

Haberman: “... Trump ... can’t stand feeling or appearing weak or powerless. But that’s exactly what he is here as Daniels is describing, in extensive detail, an encounter he continues to maintain didn’t happen.”

Christobek: “Stormy Daniels says that Trump took an interest in the business aspects of her industry and asked about unions, residuals, and health insurance, as well about S.T.D. testing.”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels says that during her dinner with Trump, she asked about his wife. He told her, she says, not to worry because the two did not 'even sleep in the same room.' Trump and Melania were married in 2005, the year before this encounter.... Stormy Daniels says she asked Trump during their dinner: 'Are you always this rude? Are you always this arrogant and pompous? Like you don’t even know how to have a conversation.'”

Swan: “Trump clearly mouths 'bullshit' as Stormy Daniels recalls playfully spanking him with a rolled-up magazine, and saying he was much more polite afterwards.”

McKinley: “Stormy Daniels says that Trump told her she reminded him of his daugh[t]er, presumably Ivanka. 'She’s smart and blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her as well,' Daniels said Trump remarked.”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels now takes on the defense's argument about her directly, saying that it was Trump himself who invited her to come on 'The Apprentice,' not the other way around. This is fascinating, because we have seen many times the way that Trump accuses his adversaries of the same faults that he’s accused of. Here, Daniels is suggesting she wasn’t the one trying to use 'The Apprentice' — he was, for sex.... Her derision toward Trump is very clear, and the tension in the courtroom during her testimony about him is the highest it has been at this trial so far.”

Bromwich: “... the judge, in a rarity, admonishes the prosecutors, specifically Susan Hoffinger, saying that the level of detail they’re eliciting from Stormy Daniels is unnecessary.”

Haberman: “Stormy Daniels is talking about going to the bathroom in Trump’s hotel suite and seeing a “leather-looking' toiletry bag on the counter. She says she saw Old Spice and 'manicure stuff' that was gold. Daniels keeps chuckling as she describes the scene, as if she's giving an interview.”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels says she came out of the bathroom and found that Trump was in the bedroom, waiting for her, in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt. She had been planning to go, she said. He was seated on the bed, between her and the exit.... Daniels is describing a remarkably intense encounter, and says that the room spun in slow motion and the blood left her hands and feet. She says that Trump did not act particularly threatening but blocked her access to the door to the bedroom. Then she says she 'blacked out,' though she did not take alcohol or drugs. At this point, the judge — who has sustained one objection and seems unusually angry — called for a sidebar. He sustains another objection.”

Haberman: “'What did I misread to get here,' she describes thinking. She says she tried to leave and he blocked her path, but not in a threatening manner.”

Bromwich: “The defense has been objecting to many questions and the judge has been sustaining a lot of them. He is not happy about this testimony.... Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, is now asking Stormy Daniels about having had sex with Trump, which Trump denies. 'Did you at some point end up on the bed having sex with him?' Hoffinger asks. Daniels says yes. When she describes the position they were in, the defense objects, and the objection is sustained.”

Haberman: “Daniels says that while she didn't object in the moment, she also didn’t enjoy it, and that she felt there was an 'imbalance' in the power dynamic between the two. [MB: Also, as McKinley wrote earlier, Trump was 60 at the time; Daniels 27.]... Stormy Daniels continues to walk the prosecutors through the encounter. She says Trump didn’t wear a condom. 'Did you say anything about it?' Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, asks. 'No,' Daniels replies, adding, when asked why not, 'I didn’t say anything at all.' She describes it as brief, and repeats that she did not say no at any point....”

Bromwich: “Daniels is testifying about a few details that corroborate her story, including who she talked to about the initial encounter, as well as further discussions with Trump, who called her 'honeybunch.'... Merchan sustains a defense objection. Susan Hoffinger, the prosecutor, objects, saying that Daniels’s answer was directly responsive to her question. Then, the judge again scolds Daniels, telling her again to keep her answers short and to the point. He then reverses himself and overrules the objection. We’ve rarely seen Merchan this openly annoyed — and when we do, he often seems to work to rein himself in after the fact.”

Christobek: “Stormy Daniels is now testifying about meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in 2007. She says she was greeted warmly, and although the meeting was brief, he introduced her to everybody, and at one point they took selfies.”

Bromwich: “Daniels says that another 2007 meeting, in Los Angeles, was the last time she saw Trump in person — before today, presumably — and that he in no way stressed that she should keep their encounter secret.”

Swan: “Trump has claimed he had nothing to do with Stormy Daniels, just as he has nothing to do with any of the women who’ve made claims against him. But the cumulative testimony extracted from this line of questioning is that Stormy Daniels met with Trump on multiple occasions, with dozens of witnesses. Daniels also describes multiple phone calls with Trump — some of which had witnesses because Daniels says she put Trump on speaker phone for sport while her friends were present. The jury has also been shown phone contact logs from Daniels’s phone and from Trump’s assistant’s phone.”

Haberman: “Stormy Daniels is now being asked about being threatened in a parking lot by someone while she was in Las Vegas with her daughter. Her voice shakes as she talks about it, and explains she didn’t report it because it would have been upsetting to the person she was in a relationship with at the time.... The testimony we’ve heard so far firmly puts Stormy Daniels in Trump’s orbit during a sustained period of time.”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels is laying out the specifics of the hush money deal — a really important part of her testimony, after a lot of details that were difficult to follow, as she skipped through meetings and dates and years as the prosecution guided her toward 2016. She said that if she were to violate the agreement, it would cost her a million dollars every time she did so.... Daniels is testifying that she was not motivated by money, and says she didn’t negotiate the hush-money deal because she didn’t care about the figure. The hush money is at the heart of the case, and she was eventually paid $130,000. I can imagine it being very hard for jurors to accept that Daniels did not want money.... Daniels said she was not paid on time, and that in 2016, she wasn’t sure why. 'He just kept making excuses,' she said. At first she clarified that the “he” in question was Michael Cohen, who paid the hush money. But then she changed her answer and testified that it was 'Trump' who delayed the payment — more specifically, Trump speaking to Cohen, who was speaking to her then-lawyer Keith Davidson. That was an interesting moment, almost as if Daniels was trying to make the prosecution’s case for them.” [Lunch break.]

Bromwich: “The defense is moving for a mistrial. This is not unusual for Trump's lawyers — in his civil fraud trial, his lawyers asked that a mistrial be called several times. They were unsuccessful.... The judge was very unhappy with this morning’s testimony and Blanche is objecting to specific details.... Todd Blanche is done and Susan Hoffinger, a prosecutor, stands up. She says that Daniels's story is important for motive and intent, to illustrate what the defendant, Trump, didn’t want the public to know before the election.... The judge has declined to declare a mistrial. While he acknowledged that some of the evidence that came in was more than he would have liked — 'better left unsaid,' is how he put it several times — he takes as much issue with the defense as with the prosecution. This must come as a major relief for prosecutors. And I can imagine that they might wish the jury was in the room right now. Justice Merchan reminds the defense that 'the remedy is on cross-examination.'...”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels has begun to testify again. It’s clear that the prosecutor, Susan Hoffinger, asked her behind closed doors to start giving shorter answers. She is sticking far more closely to the questions being asked, and her testimony — about the hush-money deal — is speeding along. She just testified that her lawyer, Keith Davidson, received $130,000. After he and her manager took fees, she ended up with about $96,000, she says.... Daniels, referring to a Wall Street Journal article that mentioned her while discussing another hush-money deal, says she did not comment for the article, honoring the terms of the deal she had reached through her lawyer, Keith Davidson. She’s very different — and so far, more helpful to prosecutors — in this afternoon session.”

Haberman: “Stormy Daniels is now being asked about a statement she signed denying having had an affair with Trump, given to her by her lawyer and dated Jan. 10, 2018. This is the same statement that Trump recently posted on Truth Social had been 'JUST FOUND.'... Daniels makes it clear that she didn’t want to sign the statement, and that it wasn’t true.”

Bromwich: “Stormy Daniels says that once her story became public, her life exploded into 'chaos — suddenly I was front and foremost everywhere,' she says.”

Haberman: “Daniels is now walking through the portion of the story where [Michael] Cohen tried to make her adhere to the non-disclosure agreement, while, she says, he was talking about the case to people. She hired [Michael] Avenatti to get her out of the N.D.A. and she told her story to Anderson Cooper on '60 Minutes.'”

Bromwich: “She then testifies that Cohen filed a temporary restraining order against her, seeking to keep her from speaking.... Stormy Daniels is saying her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, filed a defamation claim against Trump against her wishes. She says she wished he had not done so because she felt it was too risky. (Avenatti, a risk-taker by nature, was sentenced to prison in 2022 for stealing from Daniels.)”

Swan: “As Stormy Daniels was testifying about her defamation claim against Trump, the former president appeared for a while to be solidly asleep.”

Haberman: “A Trump post on Truth Social, in which he called Stormy Daniels 'horseface,' is currently on the screens in the courtroom. It’s from March 2023, as the Manhattan district attorney's office was preparing to indict Trump in this case. Trump insists he hasn’t seen Daniels since encountering her on a golf course and taking a picture with her 18 years ago. Daniels is now reading the Truth post aloud.”

Bromwich: “The direct examination is over and here comes what is liable to be a very tense cross-examination by Susan Necheles, one of Trump's lawyers.”

Christobek: “Necheles asks Daniels: 'Am I correct that you hate President Trump?' Daniels responds: 'Yes.' Necheles continues: 'And you want him to go to jail?' Daniels responds: 'I want him to be held accountable.'”

Bromwich: “Susan Necheles, Trump’s lawyer, is now pushing Stormy Daniels on her desire for money. She says that Daniels went into pornography for money, and asks her, again, 'You wanted more money, right?' Daniels retorted: 'Don’t we all want to make more money in our jobs?'... Then Necheles moves on to posts that Daniels made about wanting Trump to be imprisoned, including one saying that she would 'dance down the street' if he was selected to go to jail.”

Haberman:We just witnessed something that felt like a grade school back-and-forth. Susan Necheles gets Stormy Daniels to acknowledge she had mocked Trump’s looks on Twitter, and Daniels replies, 'Because he made fun of me first.' Necheles says that one of them started it, but 'you both continued it.'”

Bromwich: “Susan Necheles ... is trying to make Stormy Daniels look like a liar. But many of her questions have to do with money and Daniels is making it clear that she is not necessarily wealthy. So instead of this line of questioning working to impeach her credibility, as intended, it’s coming off as a lawyer for a very rich person going after someone with less money for having less money.”

Swan: “Trump’s lawyer ... has successfully established that Stormy Daniels is refusing a court order to pay legal fees to Trump, which she was ordered to do six years ago after her defamation lawsuit against him was dismissed. But the jury knows that Trump is vastly wealthier than Daniels, so it is unclear how compelling they will find it that she has declined to give him money.”

Bromwich: “Susan Necheles ... is trying to make Stormy Daniels look like a liar by bringing up her book excerpts, making it seem as if she has changed her story of having had sex with Trump. Daniels is fighting back and providing more context.... Necheles accuses Daniels directly of seeking to extort Trump through the hush-money deal. 'False,' Daniels said. 'That’s what you did, right?' Necheles repeats. 'False!' Daniels says, almost yelling in the courtroom.” [Court adjourns.]

The Trials of Trump, Ctd.

Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: “After two weeks of enthralling jurors with stories of sex and scandal, prosecutors delved into the documents at the heart of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial on Monday, a pivotal turn in the case that came on the same day the judge held Mr. Trump in contempt and threatened to jail him.... Mr. Trump made the payment to his longtime fixer, Michael D. Cohen, reimbursing him for a $130,000 hush-money payoff to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, prosecutors say. Before Mr. Trump repaid Mr. Cohen, prosecutors say, he orchestrated a scheme to falsify the records.... And they used veterans of Mr. Trump’s accounting department against him, calling on the Trump Organization’s former controller, Jeffrey McConney, and its accounts payable supervisor, Deborah Tarasoff, to walk jurors through the records.... Mr. McConney also told jurors that much of the money for Mr. Cohen had come from Mr. Trump’s personal bank account. The company sent nine of the checks to the White House for Mr. Trump to sign, Mr. McConney explained.”

Jesse McKinley & Kate Christobek of the New York Times: “Donald J. Trump’s Monday began with a grave warning from Juan M. Merchan, the judge presiding over the former president’s criminal trial, threatening to imprison him if he continued to flout a gag order. Justice Merchan said that the fines levied against Mr. Trump — $10,000 so far — 'are not serving as a deterrent.' The judge said that 'therefore, going forward, this court will have to consider jail.'” The article includes more takeaways from yesterday's proceedings. Here's CNN's “takeaways” report.

Marie: Criminals seldom make written notes proving their intent to engage in an illegal conspiracy, But that's what happened here. As Andrew Weissmann pointed out on MSNBC, Exhibits 35 & 36 in the 2016 election interference case "are the bank statement showing [Michael] Cohen paid Stormy [Daniels] $130,000 hush money, and the notes by [Jeffrey] McConney (36) and [Allen] Weisselberg (35) calculating the amounts Cohen needs to be reimbursed to make him whole after disguising the reimbursements as legal fee income." Those notes, combined with testimony from McConney & Hope Hicks, make it clear, beyond a reasonable doubt, according to Weissmann, that Trump ordered the records to be falsified. It would be unthinkable for Weisselberg, on his own, to instruct staff to overpay Cohen or for Donald Trump to write checks making overpayments to Cohen (the checks were also entered evidence) and have no idea what the checks were for. ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Alter of the New York Times: “We’re awaiting [Michael] Cohen’s testimony that Trump knew that he was reimbursing Cohen $35,000 a month for hush money, not for vague legal services, and thus broke the law. But the circumstantial and documentary evidence precorroborating Cohen — and lessening the impact of his multiple lies — is now piled as high as Trump Tower.”

Yesterday began another week of mandatory court dates for Donald Trump. New York Times reporters were there to tell us all about it. See yesterday's Conversation for details. ~~~

     ~~~ Links to previous transcripts, via the New York court system, are here.

Judge Aileen Makes Her Move. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “Reversing one of her own decisions, the federal judge overseeing ... Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case granted his request on Monday to postpone the deadline for a crucial court filing in the criminal proceeding, increasing the chance that any trial would be pushed past the November election. The ruling by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, was made in a bare-bones order that contained no factual or legal reasoning. It did not schedule a new deadline but erased the one she had set almost a month ago ordering Mr. Trump’s lawyers to file by Thursday a detailed list of the classified materials that they intend to introduce at the trial.... Judge Cannon’s postponement of the filing deadline was merely the latest example of her acceding to Mr. Trump’s attempts to delay the classified documents trial.”

Yes, Yes, Trump's Friends Seem Like Criminals, Too. David Fahrenthold of the New York Times: “The Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit whose funding skyrocketed after it became a nerve center for... Donald J. Trump’s allies in Washington, has paid at least $3.2 million since the start of 2021 to corporations led by its own leaders or their relatives, records show. In its most recent tax filings, the nonprofit’s three highest-paid contractors were all connected to insiders.... Donations to the group are tax deductible, like gifts to a food bank or the American Red Cross.... By law, its money must serve the public good rather than private interests. The nonprofit has pushed those limits by entwining itself with only one faction of American politics. It pays high salaries to some of Mr. Trump’s former officials, hosts retreats for Republican lawmakers at a rural compound and funds efforts to vet people and ideas for a second Trump term. Legal experts say these insider transactions also raise concerns about self-dealing.... 'There’s no checks and balances,' said Michael West, a lawyer at the New York Council of Nonprofits.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Ryan Nobles & Rebecca Kaplan of NBC News: "The House Judiciary Committee plans to prepare a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over the audio of President Joe Biden’s interview with former special counsel Robert Hur, a source familiar with the committee’s plans confirmed."

Presidential Race

Jennifer Bendery of the Huffington Post: “In one of his most bizarre interviews in recent memory, Donald Trump insisted abortion is 'not that big of an issue,' claimed Republicans are the 'party of fertilization' and said every legal scholar in the world supported overturning Roe v. Wade.” Here's what Trump said about the “party of fertilization.” You figure it out: “We want to help the women because they were going to end fertilization, which is where, when the IVF, where women go to the clinics and they get help in having a baby, and that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. And we’re for it a 100%. They tried to say that they weren’t for it. They actually weren’t for it and aren’t for it as much as us, but women see that.” As Bendery points out, “Republicans in Congress have long opposed women’s access to IVF.”

Lauren Sforza of the Hill: “Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) revealed Monday he would be backing President Biden in November’s election and criticized other Republicans who 'fall in line' with former President Trump. In an op-ed published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday, Duncan wrote it is 'disappointing to watch an increasing number of Republicans fall in line behind' Trump. He said that he is left with no choice but to support Biden instead of the presumptive Republican nominee, whom he described as 'a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character.... But the GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden. At the same time, we should work to elect GOP congressional majorities to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide a check and balance,' Duncan wrote.” The New York Times story is here.

Aaron Rupar, via digby, regurgitated some May 6, 2020, reports on Trump's reactions to the coronavirus crisis.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday on U.S. university campus protests are here.

David Bauder of the AP: “The New York Times and The Washington Post were awarded three Pulitzer Prizes apiece on Monday for work in 2023 that dealt with everything from the war in Gaza to gun violence, and The Associated Press won in the feature photography category for coverage of global migration to the U.S. Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the aftermath produced work that resulted in two Pulitzers and a special citation. The Times won for text coverage that the Pulitzer board described as'wide-ranging and revelatory,' while the Reuters news service won for its photography. The citation went to journalists and other writers covering the war in Gaza. The prestigious public service award went to ProPublica for reporting that 'pierced the thick wall of secrecy' around the U.S. Supreme Court to show how billionaires gave expensive gifts to justices and paid for luxury travel. Reporters Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg were honored for their work.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a full list of winners, via Axios.

~~~~~~~~~~

South Dakota. That Time I Shot My Puppy in the DMZ & Showed Up Li'l Kim While Brushing Off Macron. Or Something. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's (R) “game attempt to proceed with a media tour promoting her book despite alleged inaccuracies and a story about killing her dog is a testament to the thoroughly Trumpian impulse to just push on through — while avoiding facts.... Not only has Noem faced bipartisan backlash for her story about her young dog Cricket, but other anecdotes in the book have also been called into question in recent days. There’s the meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that seems unlikely to have happened. And there is the meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron she says she canceled, and the threatening conversation with former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley she says she recalled. (Representatives for Macron and Haley have rejected her accounts.) Through it all, Noem and her office have offered shifting accounts and, especially on the Kim story, proven bizarrely evasive.” ~~~

~~~ Michael Schaffer of Politico Magazine: "Kristi Noem’s story about killing her dog made headlines across America. But it wasn’t news to people who worked on her first book, where the tale made it into a draft of the memoir before the publishing team nixed it. Then, as now, Noem wanted the story in because it showed a decisive person who was unwilling to be bound by namby-pamby niceties, while others on the team — which included agents, editors and publicists at Hachette Book Group’s prestige Twelve imprint, and a ghostwriter — saw it as a bad-taste anecdote that would hurt her brand. The tale was ultimately cut, according to two people involved with the project. In other words, they produced a typical pre-campaign book, where the first rule is to do no harm." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IOW, even when normal people warned her that shooting your dog is not something to boast about, Gov. Kristi didn't get it. (OR, she thought Donald Trump would love it, and she could be right about that.)

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: “The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday that it had taken 'operational control' of the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Wael Abu Omar, a Gaza border official, said travel and the flow of aid into the Strip 'stopped completely' as a result. Hamas said it agreed to a Qatari-Egyptian cease-fire proposal and Israel said it would send meditators to negotiate, renewing hopes for a pause in fighting even as Israel vowed to press on with its military operation in Rafah.... The IDF said Tuesday that it struck more than 50 targets in Rafah. A day earlier, the Israeli military ordered about 100,000 civilians in parts of Rafah to evacuate. The IDF described it as 'preparation for ground operations in the area.'” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates Tuesday are here. CNN's live updates are here.

From the Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war : “Hamas informed Arab mediators that it would approve a Qatari-Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a statement Monday. While there has been no formal response from Israel, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said in a briefing later Monday: 'We are considering any response and any answer in the most serious way and are pursuing every possibility for negotiations to return the hostages as quickly as possible.' He added that 'in parallel, we are continuing to maneuver in the Gaza Strip.'” (Also linked yesterday.) 

Russia/Ukraine

Anton Troianovski of the New York Times: “Russia said on Monday that it would hold military exercises with troops based near Ukraine to practice for the possible use of battlefield nuclear weapons, a provocative warning aimed at discouraging the West from deepening its support for Ukraine. These weapons, often referred to as 'tactical,' are designed for battlefield use and have smaller warheads than the 'strategic' nuclear weapons meant to target cities. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that President Vladimir V. Putin had ordered an exercise for missile, aviation and naval personnel to 'increase the readiness of nonstrategic nuclear forces to carry out combat missions.' The announcement of the exercise was Russia’s most explicit warning in its more than two-year invasion of Ukraine that it could use tactical nuclear weapons there.” A Reuters story is here.

John Ismay & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: “A U.S. Army soldier has been detained by Russian authorities in the port city Vladivostok on charges of criminal misconduct, the State and Defense Departments said on Monday, adding what is likely to be another complication in the contentious relationship between Moscow and Washington. A military official identified the soldier as Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, and said he was in the process of returning home to Fort Cavazos in Texas after being stationed in South Korea. He was apprehended on May 2, and Russia notified the State Department of the soldier’s 'criminal detention' in accordance with international agreements between the two nations.” ~~~

     ~~~ Courtney Kube & Moshen Gains of NBC News: "[Black] had finished his deployment and was heading back to the U.S. when he made a side trip to Vladivostok, Russia, to visit a woman he was romantically involved with, officials said. They added that he had traveled there without permission from his superiors and that he is being held in pretrial confinement. The soldier is accused of stealing from a woman, the officials said. It was not immediately clear whether it was the same woman he was visiting."

Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post: “In the gilded Andreyevsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace where Russian czars were once crowned, Vladimir Putin on Tuesday swore the oath of allegiance on Russia’s constitution at his inauguration for a fifth term as president. The traditional pomp and ceremony conveyed his might as Russia’s supreme, uncontested leader for the past quarter-century. Bristling with optimism abut his ongoing war against Ukraine, Putin declared he would place Russia’s security above all else and promised that the country would be victorious. A 30-gun salute followed his remarks.”

The Conversation -- May 6, 2024

David Bauder of the AP: “The New York Times and The Washington Post were awarded three Pulitzer Prizes apiece on Monday for work in 2023 that dealt with everything from the war in Gaza to gun violence, and The Associated Press won in the feature photography category for coverage of global migration to the U.S. Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the aftermath produced work that resulted in two Pulitzers and a special citation. The Times won for text coverage that the Pulitzer board described as'wide-ranging and revelatory,' while the Reuters news service won for its photography. The citation went to journalists and other writers covering the war in Gaza. The prestigious public service award went to ProPublica for reporting that 'pierced the thick wall of secrecy' around the U.S. Supreme Court to show how billionaires gave expensive gifts to justices and paid for luxury travel. Reporters Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg were honored for their work.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a full list of winners, via Axios.

From the Washington Post's live updates of developments in the Israel/Hamas war (also linked earlier today): “Hamas informed Arab mediators that it would approve a Qatari-Egyptian cease-fire proposal, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a statement Monday. While there has been no formal response from Israel, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said in a briefing later Monday: 'We are considering any response and any answer in the most serious way and are pursuing every possibility for negotiations to return the hostages as quickly as possible.' He added that 'in parallel, we are continuing to maneuver in the Gaza Strip.'”

Yes, Yes, Trump's Friends Seem Like Criminals, Too. David Fahrenthold of the New York Times: “The Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit whose funding skyrocketed after it became a nerve center for... Donald J. Trump’s allies in Washington, has paid at least $3.2 million since the start of 2021 to corporations led by its own leaders or their relatives, records show. In its most recent tax filings, the nonprofit’s three highest-paid contractors were all connected to insiders.... Donations to the group are tax deductible, like gifts to a food bank or the American Red Cross.... By law, its money must serve the public good rather than private interests. The nonprofit has pushed those limits by entwining itself with only one faction of American politics. It pays high salaries to some of Mr. Trump’s former officials, hosts retreats for Republican lawmakers at a rural compound and funds efforts to vet people and ideas for a second Trump term. Legal experts say these insider transactions also raise concerns about self-dealing.... 'There’s no checks and balances,' said Michael West, a lawyer at the New York Council of Nonprofits.”

It's going to be a Trump day today. New York Times reporters are ready to tell us all about it: ~~~

Maggie Haberman: “Trump is in the courtroom, with his son Eric in tow again. Alina Habba, who represented Trump in his civil fraud trial last year, is sitting next to Eric Trump. Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s recently-indicted legal adviser, is sitting behind both, several seats away from Alan Garten, the Trump Organization's general counsel.”

Jonah Bromwich: “The judge says he will address the motion for contempt and begins to address Trump and his lawyers. He says that he will find Trump in criminal contempt for the 10th time — one for each of the violations of his gag order.”

Haberman: “Justice Merchan is speaking directly to Trump, in an extraordinary moment. He tells him he’s finding him in contempt of the gag order a 10th time, but that the $1,000 per instance fines aren’t working and that he has to consider jail. 'The last thing' he wants to do is put Trump in jail, the judge says, adding, 'You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well.'... Justice Merchan tells Trump his ongoing violation of his gag order is a 'direct attack on the rule of law. I cannot allow that to continue.' He says he wants him to understand he will put him in jail if he has to.”

Kate Christobek: “Trump was hunched over at the defense table staring at Merchan as he issued his warning. When the judge concluded, Trump shook his head.”

Bromwich: “... the written order leaves Trump a bit of wiggle room — Merchan writes that 'if appropriate and warranted, future violations' of his orders will be punishable by jail. He could have drawn an even brighter red line by saying 'any future violation.' Still, overall, this is a dire situation for the former president.”

Haberman: “Defense lawyers suggest they’ve been told Jeffrey McConney, who was a top Trump Organization official at the time of the Stormy Daniels payout, will be the next witness.”

Bromwich: “The judge is now scolding the defense lawyers. He is frustrated because they wish to lodge objections related to the witness, Jeffrey McConney, but that they did not tell him yesterday, when they learned who the witness was, that they would have objections. Justice Merchan has objected to what he sees as efforts from the defense to delay the trial, often by taking action last minute.”

Haberman: “Jeffrey McConney testifies that he worked for the Trump Organization beginning in 1987. For context, that’s just a few years after Trump Tower opened, and the same year that Trump made a feint at running for president the first time with a trip to New Hampshire as his book 'The Art of the Deal' was being published.... He is now describing the intricate lacing of more than 500 entities that comprise the Trump Organization.... For context on how the Trump Organization worked, Jeffrey McConney’s son Justin was the person who basically ran Trump’s Twitter feed before Trump learned how to do it himself, a moment that Justin described to Politico as like the moment the dinosaurs learned to open doors in 'Jurassic Park.'”

Jonathan Swan: “Jeffrey McConney, who no longer works for the Trump Organization, says the company is still footing his legal bills.”

Bromwich: “For those of us who covered the Trump Organization’s trial in 2022, hearing Jeffrey McConney’s testimony is like experiencing deja vu. At that trial, too, McConney testified about his old boss, Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, who is currently in jail. McConney and Weisselberg had been close, having lunch every day, as McConney just testified. In this trial filled with fascinating witnesses and compelling testimony, McConney’s appearance may mark a turn, as we begin to hear about the financial documents at the heart of the case.” ~~~

~~~ Susanne Craig: “During that trial, the Trump Organization was convicted of tax fraud and other crimes.”

Bromwich: “Jeffrey McConney just told a story that is emblematic of Trump’s management style. He says about a year into his employment, he walked into Trump’s office. The boss, who was on the phone, said to him: 'Jeff, you’re fired.'... McConney wasn’t actually fired, but Trump warned him that it was a problem that his 'cash balances went down last week' and urged him to 'focus on my bills.' It was, McConney says, a 'teaching moment.' And it’s helpful for prosecutors seeking to illustrate how closely Trump was focused on the outflow of cash.” [MB: Not at all clear in Bromwich's telling, but according to analysts on MSNBC, the point here was that Trump wanted McConney not to pay his bills, but to negotiate them down first.]

Haberman: “The prosecutor just asked Jeffrey McConney: 'Are you familiar with' Michael Cohen? This is going to introduce key conversations between Allen Weisselberg, the former top financial official at the Trump Organization, and Cohen, a key witness for the prosection.... McConney is being fairly mocking of Cohen. Asked about his role, McConney says, 'He said he was a lawyer.'”

Bromwich: “McConney says that in 2017, his boss, Allen Weisselberg, told him that Cohen needed some money. Some of it was related to Cohen’s bonus, McConney testifies, and adds, 'And then there was some other money he was owed.' Cohen was owed $130,000 for the hush-money payment.”

Bromwich: “Jeffrey McConney is testifying about hugely important documentary evidence, only barely disguised by the financial documents and handwritten notes on screen. We just now learned that the payment came from Trump’s personal bank account. It appears we are about to see that the invoices Michael Cohen sent for the payment were prompted by Cohen’s conversation with Allen Weisselberg, in an arrangement, again, that Cohen will testify was confirmed with Trump.” [Emphasis added.]

Bromwich: “Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor, ends his direct questioning by asking Jeffrey McConney a series of questions about a financial disclosure publicized in 2018 in which Trump reported to the government that he had repaid more than $100,000 to Mr. Cohen the previous year. This form is further documentary evidence of the hush-money reimbursement, and as our colleagues reported then, raised many questions when it was first made public.”

Swan: “In his cross-examination, Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove is trying to establish some distance between Trump and the actions of his accounting department. Trump has opened his eyes for this section and is paying close attention. He smiled as Jeffrey McConney said he never discussed accounting software with Trump.”

Craig: “McConney said he never gave Trump a tour of the company’s accounting software. But it’s important to remember the government’s lawyers need not prove that Trump personally falsified the records, only that he orchestrated their falsification.”

Craig: “Jurors are seeing a lot of notes scribbled by Jeffrey McConney. It looks more like how someone might track their personal taxes on the fly, not something coming out of a company.”

Jesse McKinley: “We’re seeing a bank statement from Michael Cohen’s shell company, Essential Consultants, marked with a handwritten notation by Allen Weisselberg.... It outlines the reimbursement to Cohen, which included a bonus and monies to cover a tax burden. Weisselberg’s handwriting is a scrawl but Jeffrey McConney seems to be able to read it.”

Bromwich: “This evidence helps to counter one of the arguments that the defense made in its opening statement, asking the jury to consider why, if Michael Cohen made a payment of $130,000, he was paid so much more than he would have been owed. But Jeffrey McConney just walked us through the disparity in the amounts, which includes both a bonus for Cohen and tax considerations.”

Haberman: “This also underscores the prosecution’s argument that top officials in the Trump Organization were involved in making Cohen financially whole. And McConney just walked through how closely Trump, historically, has paid attention to his bottom line.”

Bromwich: “We are seeing important evidence right now, of the instructions Weisselberg gave to McConney as related to paying Cohen, in part to reimburse the hush-money payment. This fulfills several important functions: Cohen is expected to testify that he spoke with Trump about being repaid, and that Trump asked Weisselberg to handle the specifics. So here, we see paper evidence of what prosecutors will say is the aftermath of that conversation, and the blueprints for the repayment.”

Haberman: “On screen is an email from Allen Weisselberg to Jeffrey McConney saying that it was okay to pay the money to Michael Cohen, “per agreement with Don and Eric.” Eric Trump is sitting in the courtroom as this takes place.... Notably, McConney testifies that he didn’t send the invoice from Cohen to the legal department for review. He acknowledges he typically would do so with invoices.”

Bromwich: “We are beginning to see the roots of what prosecutors say are false about the documents at issue in this case. Jeffrey McConney told Deborah Tarasoff, who dealt with the details of payroll at the Trump Organization and who is also expected to testify, to record the payments to Michael Cohen as 'legal expenses.' He also told her to say they were being made as part of a 'retainer' agreement between Cohen and Trump, which prosecutors say did not exist. Prosecutors say that was a way to disguise the hush-money reimbursement to Cohen. To find Trump guilty, jurors will have to agree that these documents were indeed falsified.”

Christobek: “Matthew Colangelo, the prosecutor, asked McConney if he ever saw a retainer agreement. He responded: 'I did not.'”

Bromwich: “The last 10 minutes or so have consisted of a slow procession of invoices from Michael Cohen and related emails between Jeffrey McConney, Deborah Tarasoff and Allen Weisselberg being shown on the video monitors in the courtroom. These, prosecutors say, are the false documents. They don’t look like much, and despite their centrality to the case, the room has taken on a relaxed atmosphere as we make our way through them.... We’ve concluded looking at the series of 11 invoices that prosecutors say were falsified. With that testimony, we take our morning break.”

Bromwich: “Matthew Colangelo, the prosecutor, questioned Jeffrey McConney again during a brief re-direct. He leaned into the arguments the defense was making, and only really asked McConney if he later learned that there were things going on to which he had not been privy to. This takes advantage of Emil Bove, Trump's lawyer, not having an alternative explanation for the documentary evidence. Bove argued that McConney didn’t know what he was talking about when it came to the transactions that Allen Weisselberg directed him to make. But not only was Colangelo fine with that — he thought it was helpful for the prosecution’s case.”

Haberman: “Watching Emil Bove’s largely hard-to-follow cross examination of Jeffrey McConney, the challenge facing Trump’s lawyers again becomes clear. They’re basically doing a version of: 'He didn’t do it, and even if he did it’s not a crime.'... But ... [there is] a lot of pretty clear evidence that Michael Cohen made a payoff to Stormy Daniels that he was reimbursed for after discussions involving top Trump financial officials. Since the client here — Trump — never wants his lawyers to cede any ground as to whether he did anything questionable, the defense lawyers are left with this jumble.” [Lunch break.]

Bromwich: “Christopher Conroy, a prosecutor, just told the judge that the next witness would be Deborah Tarasoff, who has run the Trump Organization’s books for years.”

Haberman: “Todd Blanche, one of Trump's lawyers, complains to Justice Merchan that the defense only learned who the prosecution's next witness would be 30 minutes ago. The prosecutors' lack of trust toward the defense team is underscored here.... Deborah Tarasoff [testifies] she still is employed by the Trump Organization, and the company is paying for her lawyers.... Tarasoff is walking the court through the very mundane way in which Trump would sign checks, down to the black Sharpie he would use. She is underscoring that, for all of Trump’s emphasis on the size of his company, Hope Hicks was correct when she testified that the company functioned like a family business. Things take place on a small and almost parochial level.”

Christobek: “Deborah Tarasoff says that Trump had to sign all the checks from his personal account, even after he became president and was living in Washington, D.C. She says they were sent by FedEx. She added that after Trump signed the checks, she would eventually get them back.”

Haberman: “As a side note, Trump’s campaign is fundraising off the judge’s warning to him this morning about possible jail time if he does not stop violating his gag order, and attacking witnesses and others connected to the case.”

McKinley: “We are seeing a series of checks made out to Michael Cohen, signed by Trump.”

Bromwich: Todd Blanche is doing the cross of Tarasoff. “The cross-examination concludes, very quickly.”

Marie: In case you're feeling sorry for Hope Hicks because those mean prosecutors drove her to tears when thet forced her to testify against her Dear Ole Boss, remember that her Dear Ole Boss was Donald Trump and that Hicks conspired with him time and again to mislead the public, as this WashPo story demonstrates in regard to some of Trump's scandalous past. Hope Hicks knew what Donald Trump was and she aided & abetted him anyway.

Into the Weeds We Go. David Nakamura of the Washington Post: “An obscure New York state election law that has rarely been prosecuted over five decades has been dusted off by Manhattan prosecutors and elevated to a prominent role in Donald Trump’s criminal trial over allegedly falsifying documents related to a hush money payment during the 2016 election campaign. The law — Section 17-152 of the state’s election code — makes it a misdemeanor for two or more people to 'conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.' Trump is not being charged under that statute, which apparently has been used only a few times in cases related to state or local elections, though it is a key factor in his case.... In bringing the felony charges, prosecutors are required to prove not just that Trump doctored records, but that he did so to commit or conceal another crime.... '... The entire case is predicated on the idea that there was a conspiracy to influence the election in 2016, [prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan during Trump’s trial on April 23.... Prosecutors do] not have to prove Trump violated the statute but merely demonstrate that he was falsifying internal Trump Organization records as part of a broader scheme to improperly influence the 2016 election.”

** Gaby Del Valle of the New York Times profiles Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) (Also linked yesterday.) 

Brett Samuels of the Hill: “The White House on Sunday slammed former President Trump after he compared the Biden administration to the Gestapo police force in Nazi Germany. 'Instead of echoing the appalling rhetoric of fascists, lunching with Neo Nazis, and fanning debunked conspiracy theories that have cost brave police officer their lives, President Biden is bringing the American people together around our shared democratic values and the rule of law...,' deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.”

Nick Robertson of the Hill: “House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) emphasized the stakes of the 2024 election in a '60 Minutes' interview on Sunday, warning that much more than abortion rights are at risk if former President Trump gets a second term.... 'If Roe v. Wade can fall, anything can fall,' he [said]. 'Social Security can fall. Medicare can fall. Voting rights can fall. And God help us all, but democracy itself can fall....'”

Veepstakes. digby: “Kristi Noem went on Face the Nation and poured gasoline on her dumpster fire of a political career this morning[.]... [According to the Daily Beast,] 'At one point in the book, titled No Going Back, Noem recalled meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, claiming he “underestimated” her. However, experts have called into question whether such a meeting could have ever taken place. “Did you meet Kim Jong Un?” [host Margaret] Brennan directly asked the governor, who avoided answering the question and instead said she’s “met with many, many world leaders” and has “made some edits” to the book. “I’m not going to talk about my specific meetings with world leaders...,” [Noem replied]....' And here’s the coup de grâce....She ended the book by saying that she wanted to shoot Biden’s dog. I’m not kidding.” The New York Times story is here. At the end of the NYT story, we find out that Noem believes in doggie heaven and doggie hell.

Photo aspirational. Trump is not that good.Donald Trump Has Been Asking, “Are You Better Off Than You Were Four Years Ago?” Let's Check. Top News in the New York Times, May 6, 2020: An exposé of how Jared Kushner mucked up the procurement and distribution of critically-needed medical supplies needed to battle the coronavirus by fobbing off the job to a group of inexperienced volunteers who prioritized input from Friends of Trump. ary “The fumbling search for new supplies — heralded by Mr. Trump and Mr. Kushner as a way to pipe private-sector hustle and accountability into the hidebound federal bureaucracy — became a case study of Mr. Trump’s style of governing, in which personal relationships and loyalty are often prized over governmental expertise, and private interests are granted extraordinary access and deference.” ~~~ 

     ~~~ Marie: Now just think how well the kleptocracy would work in a second Trump term, when Trump's flaks would institute this same level of corruption and incompetence all across the federal government. It is not only democracy that is at stake (you know, free & fair elections & so on), it is also the luxury of living in a country with a functioning government that serves public needs. Trump is not Mussolini incarnate; Mussolini made the trains run on time.

The New York Times' liveblog of developments Monday re: U.S. college campus protests is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: “The Israel Defense Forces is calling for civilians in parts of Rafah to 'evacuate immediately' to a humanitarian zone, saying they will operate with “extreme force” in those areas. Israel’s determination to invade Rafah remains a sticking point in cease-fire negotiations that appear to be at an impasse, with a Hamas delegation leaving the ongoing negotiations in Cairo to consult its leadership in Qatar.... The U.N. agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, said it was not evacuating Rafah and would “maintain a presence” in the city for 'as long as possible' to continue providing aid. An Israeli offensive would be 'devastating' for the more than 1 million people sheltering there, it said.” ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Monday are here. CNN's live updates are here.

Michael Schwartz, et al., of CNN: “Israel has ordered the closure of Al Jazeera in the country, a move the Qatar-based news network called a 'criminal act.' Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a post on X: 'The government headed by me unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel.'... In a post on X, [Netanyahu's spokesman] said that the network’s 'broadcast equipment will be confiscated, the channel’s correspondents will be prevented from working, the channel will be removed from cable and satellite television companies, and Al Jazeera’s websites will be blocked on the Internet.' Israeli cable providers ceased carrying the Al Jazeera networks by late Sunday afternoon.... Several of the network’s journalists working in Gaza have been injured or killed since October 7.” (Also linked yesterday.)